Anne Hébert

Anne Hébert ( 1916-2000), was a Canadian author and poet. She won Canada's top literary honor, the Governor General's Award, three times, twice for fiction and once for poetry. Les Chambres de bois (1958), her first novel, contained particularly original imagery, exploring mortally constrained worlds in which interaction is based on brutal passion and primitive violence. The book signaled a significant shift in style and content for Québécois literature. Instead of realistic discourse, we find a literature of rebellion that is experimental and expresses a deep sense of alienation. Hébert died of bone cancer on January 22, 2000 in Montreal.